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Poetry

All the Weight

by Holly Day

When I was very young, and had first learned about atoms and molecules
I imagined that I could see the empty spaces in solid objects
the great swaths of nothing inside of everything,
the thin currents of electricity that barely held things together.
I imagined that I could put my hands through the wall
or my foot through a table, or fall into nothing, like a ghost.

Sometimes I can almost feel myself as that child, can almost see
those yawning gaps in the bones of my house,
in the sidewalk stretching off to the bus stop in the morning
in the bus itself as it comes lumbering down the street,
and I wonder if it’s only blind faith that keeps me
from exploding into a clutch of disconnected atoms
flitting off into the cold daylight
like tiny moths or motes of sparkling dust.

Featured Poet of the Month Holly Day

Holly Day’s most recently-published nonfiction books are Music Theory for Dummies (John Wiley & Sons) and Tattoo FAQ (Backbeat Books); her recent poetry books include A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing), In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press), I’m in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Press), Where We Went Wrong (Clare Songbirds Publishing), Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds (Cyberwit), and Cross-Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing). Her writing has been nominated for a National Magazine Award, a 49th Parallel Prize, fifteen Pushcart awards, five Best of the Net awards, and a Rhysling Award, and she has received two Midwest Writer’s Grants, a Plainsongs Award, a Sam Ragan Prize for Poetry, and a Dwarf Star Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

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